Top 5 Takeaways from #SmartSuccessLive 2016

I’m going to be honest with you, I suffered from a hangover last month. A Smart Success hangover. For those of you that don't know, Smart Success is an online academy created by Chalene Johnson and I recently went to the 3-day live event.  

It’s so hard for me to go places where my heart is touched without getting drained. I get emotionally invested and am so engaged, like I want to suck up every last drop of a drink through the straw, and it just completely knocks me out. That’s just the way I am. I used to wonder what was wrong with me. I tried to figure out how to get more sleep or manage my time better so that this wouldn’t happen but then I figured out that that’s just the way God made me and you know what?  That’s OK!  

Even if I could talk to you for ten days straight I still could not fully describe this experience to you. This year there was an overwhelming emphasis on faith and God. Every year that I’m at Smart Success God speaks to me differently. This year I got to emcee for the event and for some people that would have been terrifying, but for me – it’s part of my happy drug! God gives us all skills, joys and abilities and He does that because they are part of your purpose!  

I wanted to share with you the 5 top things I learned from Smart Success in hopes that you are inspired to do ONE thing each day that gets you closer to one of your goals in life (business, marriage, health, etc!): 
 
1- Do a brain dump every day. I pray and as I’m praying I write down any ideas that come to me. The thing is, if I really want my business and my dreams to look the way I want them to look then I need more help. I have assistants helping me out but they can’t do everything. I have them working on what they can do for me but if there are things they can’t do, then I need to find people that can.  

2- Create a “snap out of it” exercise. It's something that I refer to all the time. It’s called the “me list”. Basically, I have a list of all the things about myself that the people around me could find difficult to deal with. This helps me snap back to reality when I get frustrated with someone.  

Here's a few things on my list that I remind myself: I am hard to live with! It’s true! I jump on ideas in five seconds without thinking them through, I am emotional, and I’m a messy sleeper!  I suppose this list is an expression of compassion or empathy because it brings me back to reality when I’m frustrated and reminds me to step back and remember that the person I’m frustrated with has to put up a lot and I’m not always easy! 

3- How to find your purpose. Chalene Johnson said, "To live your purpose is to look for opportunities to share my gifts, lessons learned and challenges you’ve overcome (thus far) to help those who are positioned to receive." This applies to EVERYONE. If you've ever felt lost or unsure of what you are on this earth for, re-read this quote from Chalene! Don't miss the key part of her statement, "...to help those who are positioned to receive." The right people and opportunities will come at the right time. They just have to be positioned to receive. It won't and can't work if it's forced. YOUR story has purpose and IS your purpose.  

4- Create habits and systems for EVERYTHING in your life. Habits and systems should allow you to eat healthier, exercise daily, be more productive, stay organized, save time and create routine and it all starts with your environment. Your house, your car, your closet, your brain...everything. Does it reflect your beliefs? We can begin to form new habits by creating positive triggers that cause you to stop and think, for example, putting a post-it note on your bathroom mirror to floss or setting out your workout clothes near your bedroom doorway to remind you to go workout. Those triggers help us take action on the new habit (i.e. work out, floss, etc.) and once you use the trigger often enough, it becomes mindless execution. 

5-Set up healthy boundaries and personal policies. A personal policy is a boundary you set around the thing/things/person that is most important or that you are setting your intention on.  

Do you need to unplug from social media at a certain time in order to invest more in your marriage? Or spend more time with your kids? Learning to say "no" or graciously back down from commitments is imperative to protecting your personal policies. The more you say no, the less people will keep asking. It's OKAY to say no and back out of commitments if they are not adding value.

Here's a few questions to ask yourself when faced with making a decision:  

• Will this add value to my life? 
• What effect will it have on the important people in my life?  
• Will this break a policy? is it worth the exception?  
• Will it simplify my life?  
• Should something come before this? what’s the next step?  
• If it goes wrong, what is the worst possible outcome?  
• Is this the right season? 

I feel like I could write a 20 page paper on what I learned from Smart Success, but instead, I STRONGLY encourage you to take part in the online academy and go to the live event to see and hear for yourself how you can DRASTICALLY improve your life in every area by learning to do less! Keep your eyes open for registration this year.